10 Most Terrifying Jump Scares In Horror Movie History

7. Mulholland Drive (2001)

The Movie: In a filmography already full of bizarre yet fascinating movies, David Lynch's Mulholland Drive is arguably one of his strangest pictures, but its also undeniably one of his best. The story of aspiring actress Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) and her arrival in Los Angeles is inter-cut with a number of seemingly unrelated vignettes which eventually connect in a way that never fully makes sense in a conventional manner.

The Scare: 10 minutes into Mulholland Drive, Lynch inserts a strange little scene set in a diner, which could stand alone as a short film within the larger context of the movie. Two men sit at a table, discussing a nightmare one of them had where he dreamed of a horrifying figure that sits waiting behind the diner. Tension builds until the two men decide to investigate. As they approach the back of the building, even the most mundane objects become terrifying until events reach a climax and a disfigured goblin like creature emerges from behind the wall, causing one of the men to collapse in terror.

Mulholland Drive may not technically be a horror movie, but the surreal imagery and unsettling narrative disturbed many audiences upon the films release nonetheless. Lynch somehow manages to defy the typical jump scare set-up by sign posting throughout the scene exactly what is going to happen and yet even though viewers know it's coming, the climax of the scene still has the power to shock more than the majority of jump scares which rely on surprise.